Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Premier. I’d like to follow up on my statement but also the Premier’s statement today. I’d like to start off by saying I really appreciate the statement that the Premier did make today and that there is a commitment to action on the part of the government towards an Anti-Poverty Strategy. The Premier, I believe, stated that it is time to begin work. I would say that it is well beyond the time to begin the work, but I’m very happy that it is going to start.
We have heard that basically this work is going to start. We’ve also heard that a strategy is going to be developed based on a document that he is going to table later on today. My concern is that we have a report from a very thorough workshop which was held in October 2010 and there is no indication on any information that I’ve had from the government that we will be using that report to develop our Anti-Poverty Strategy. I’d like to know from the Premier the timeline, as well, that he’s indicated is pretty much a full calendar year. Almost 10 months. Well, over 10 months if we start from today. I’d like to know if the Premier could advise me and advise the House what the government will be doing in working with people in developing a strategy that is going to take 10 months. Can he give me a bit of an outline of the details on the process that is going to be followed?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to indicate that in addition to the workshop that this government funded for $40,000 which assisted us greatly, we also had consultations throughout the Northwest Territories. We had about 250 people present to the group that was doing the community consultation. We had focus groups and sessions in a number of communities. We had regional advisors from every region in the Northwest Territories. We’ve taken that information and we are releasing the document What We Heard today, and over the next few months we will be working within the government and also working with a committee that will be established called the Social Envelope Committee, and we’ll be working collaboratively with as many people as we can to develop an Anti-Poverty Strategy that will hit the ground running this year.
Thanks to the Premier. I think my question was more to the details as we go forward. I’d like to mention that Nunavut is well into the process of developing an Anti-Poverty Strategy and one of the things that they did was to have a public engagement process culminated in their strategy. It basically took them about a year and I’d like to know from the Premier whether or not our process is going to be similar to the Nunavut public engagement process. They had a team which was representatives of government, Inuit organizations, non-profit organizations and the business community. They travelled to every one of Nunavut’s 25 communities. Is that the sort of process that this government is going to follow or is it going to be something where we have this committee, as the Premier has mentioned, made up of bureaucrats who work in isolation?
I’m sure the Member would be very pleased to hear that we’re going beyond what Nunavut has done. We’ve had 33 focus group sessions. My understanding is Nunavut held one workshop and released the recommendations that emanated. We’re going to go further than that. We’re going to draft the strategy, we’re going to have direction from the Ministers of this government, the social envelope Ministers, and when we are finished we’ll have an Anti-Poverty Strategy that will be implemented and hit the ground running.
Thanks to the Premier. I’m getting a little more confused. The Premier’s now saying that we will draft a strategy and then I thought I heard him say that there will be some consultation after that.
I need to go back to comments that the Premier made in December, and I believe he then talked about a discussion paper relative to the Anti-Poverty Strategy, that one was in development. I don’t see any reference to a discussion paper in his statement today and I haven’t heard anything in his answers to my questions yet. I’d like to ask the Premier whether or not the discussion paper that he referenced in December has gone by the wayside or is it still being developed. Thank you.
I would like to clarify once again. We will be releasing What We Heard papers, What We Heard from all of our consultations. We are working on a draft discussion paper. We will be working developing that in conjunction with the social envelope Ministers. We met with Alternatives North and YWCA to discuss the Anti-Poverty Strategy and they were very pleased with that approach.
Thanks to the Premier. I’m pleased to hear that Alternatives North and the Y are very pleased. There are a few more organizations than that, though. I believe the Anti-Poverty Coalition has some 25 or 29 organizations and I would hope they would also all be very involved.
The Premier mentioned a committee of Ministers or DMs. I’ve lost the thought now, but I’d like to know, most initiatives that we have within the GNWT have a lead Minister, and I’ve heard no reference to who the lead Minister for the Anti-Poverty Strategy project will be. Can the Premier advise me of that? Thank you.
We’re going to have a committee of social envelope Ministers, so all the Ministers that are involved with poverty will be directing the development of the Anti-Poverty Strategy. We’ll have a lead deputy minister that will coordinate the direction and make sure that we follow the direction of the Social Envelope Committee.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess my last question for the Premier is: If we have a committee of Ministers and I have a question that relates to the Anti-Poverty Strategy or something that is related to that, who do I address my questions to? If it’s a department, I’m well aware, but if it’s a committee of Ministers, I would ask the Premier again who is the lead Minister that I can speak with when I have a concern? Thank you.
We communicated that information to the chair of P and P just recently and the chair of the social envelope Ministers will be Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
